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DVD The Desperate Hours
Humphrey Bogart is at his villainous best in William Wyler's taut home-invasion thriller, The Desperate Hours. Sharply adapted by John Hayes from his own fact-based novel and Broadway play, this marked a slight departure for Wyler, whose celebrated versatility is on ready display as Bogart--leading a panicky trio of escaped convicts--seizes control of a suburban family in the (dis)comfort of their own home. The domestic terror (similarly dramatized in the 1954 potboiler Suddenly) escalates as cautious patriarch Frederic March waits for an opportunity to retaliate, while the police (led by Arthur Kennedy) close in for an ambush. Viewers may recognize the home's exterior from TV's Leave It to Beaver, while its interior gives Wyler a sealed chamber for nail-biting advances and setbacks--and Bogey was rarely better at portraying ruthless, unpredictable menace. Poorly remade in 1990, The Desperate Hours remains a potent precursor to the many similar films (like Panic Room) that followed its enduring example. --Jeff Shannon
Humphrey Bogart leads a trio of cons who have violently broken out of prison. On the run, they randomly select a suburban house in which to hole up and take hostages. This happens to be the home of Fredric March, and a tense battle of wits and wills ensue. March's dilemma is simple: if the police show up, Bogart will make sure his family dies. But if he doesn't get help, what guarantee does he have that Bogart won't kill them all anyway? Though film adaptations of plays are often awkwardly bound to one set, The Desperate Hours works despite minimal opening up, as the house becomes a claustrophobic prison for both characters and audience. Bogart and March are believably well-matched antagonists, each one perfectly embodying everything the other man despises about the American experience. Terrific stuff.
Mono sound, but you really won't miss the stereo. For one thing, the risks involved with stereo remixes often outweigh potential benefits. For another, after the opening credits, there is no music score. This is a film much more about the crackling dialogue and tension between the characters, and no surround is needed. The film's original ratio is 1.85:1 (VistaVision). What we have here looks to me like the 1.78:1 cheat that is becoming all too frequent. That aside, the video transfer is gorgeous.
Special features: none whatsoever. Not even a trailer.
The total lack of extras is, of course, disappointing. That should not discourage you from tracking down the film, however, which remains a sterling exercise in suspense.
A Popular Broadway Play Made into a Movie
In an attempt to rank all of Bogart's popular movies, I have viewed most of Bogart's films and put together two Listmania lists that are posted on Amazon.com. The rankings are based on his overall acting contribution, the entertainment value of the movie, the other actors, plot, etc. I ranked this movie #20 out of 50 Bogart films. One can argue if it is 4 or 5 stars and I suspect is probably deserves 4 stars. Some might rank it higher, but it is not a top 10 Bogart movie in my opinion, but closer to the average.
This is a 1954 film made late in Bogart's career with Fredric March playing opposite Bogart - he made just one more before his death. When first conceived as a movie by the producer, it was to be with co-star Spencer Tray but differences over first billing could not be resolved - according to Bogart's biographer Meyers. The movie is based on a novel by Joseph Hayes and a successful Broadway production starring Paul Newman and Karl Malden, here Bogart playing the Newman role. According to the critics of the time, the movie did not live up to the quality and drama of the play. The original stage play takes place only in the home of a family held hostage in a semi-claustrophobic and pressure cooker environment set in suburban Indianapolis. The movie version spills out of this confined setting with street scenes, rural scenes, etc. and that extension of the movie outside the home is perhaps the weakness of the movie. The movie is in black and white in an era of color - and marketed as a return to classic Bogart movies of the 1930s and early 1940s. But the movie lacks certain ingredients and does not quite capture the old Warner Brothers film noire ambiance, while perhaps losing the intense drama of the stage play.
In the story, Bogart is the brains among three escaped convicts who invade the home of an executive and his wife who have a good looking twenty year old daughter and a young son. There is a certain element of drama since one of the convicts - not Bogart - is unpredictable, while the third convict lusts after the daughter.
The movie is entertaining and it is interesting, but overall it lacks a certain level of movie magic and attraction compared to some of Bogart's other works, so I would rate it just average. There is some drama but no intense acting scenes with Bogart. The plot contains a level of predictability and has some elements of the plot similar The Petrified Forest, a 1935 movie of roughly equal quality but starring Bette Davis and Leslie Howard, and where Bogart holds another group hostage. Similarly there is an element from the Bogart-Bacall film to Have and Have Not, where he shoots out the light to escape.
This is a good Bogart effort, but just slightly better than average among his 50 movies. I saw the movie first as a rental from a small video store that had a good inventory of 1930s and 1940s Bogart movies. After viewing about 30 or 40 of his movies, I was not excited enough to buy the movie, although I ended up buying about a dozen Bogart DVDs on Amazon.com, some at stores, plus the Bogart biography by Jeffrey Meyers: Bogart. The Meyers biography makes an excellent Bogart movie guide if you are interested in more details on the movies and his life.
Great movie, great price, weak audio sound
Overall, the movie is very enjoyable and has typical Bogie characteristics; picture is very sharp but audio could have been better. Audio was very clear provided you dramatically increase the volume on the TV. Recommended for all Bogart fans!
Humphrey Bogart stars as a crusading district attorney working against the clock to prosecute a mob boss in this suspenseful picture that should appeal to crime completists and fans of the iconic actor. Based on actual court cases, the plot unfolds largely in flashback as Bogart reviews his case against vicious racketeer Everett Sloane, who has killed off anyone that has threatened to testify against him. Capably directed by Bretaigne Windust (with uncredited help from Raoul Walsh, who shot most of the film's most suspenseful moments, including the nail-biting conclusion), The Enforcer's standard law vs. the mob plotline benefits greatly from its unusual structure, as well as Bogart's solid presence and a terrific supporting cast, which includes an early turn by Zero Mostel. The... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Humphrey Bogart - Zero Mostel Director(s): Raoul Walsh - Bretaigne Windust DVD Release Date: Released the 16 December 2003 Usually ships within 24 hours
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DEAD END is director William Wyler's 1937 gangster melodrama masterpiece starring Joel McCrea, Sylvia Sidney, and Humphrey Bogart. Written by Lillian Hellman (THE LITTLE FOXES), the film incorporates several intertwining stories centered around a small neighborhood on the Lower East Side where the crowded and filthy tenements of the poor abut the newer walled luxury high-rises of the wealthy. Unemployed architect Dave Connell (McCrea) is torn between the working girl Drina (Sidney) and rich man's girlfriend Kay Burton (Wendy Barrie). Gangster "Baby Face" Martin (Humphrey Bogart) has also returned to his old neighborhood only to find out nobody is glad to see him including his boyhood friend Connell, his resentful mother (Marjorie Main) and his fallen former girlfriend Francey (Claire... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sylvia Sidney - Joel McCrea - Humphrey Bogart Director(s): William Wyler DVD Release Date: Released the 08 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This 1941 melodrama is memorable for both its strong central performances and their intimations of how the previous decade's crime dramas would evolve into film noir--no accident, given the solid direction of veteran Raoul Walsh and the hand of screenwriter John Huston, who teamed with the author of its novelistic source, W.R. Burnett (Little Caesar). In the central character of Roy "Mad Dog" Earle, a fictional peer to John Dillinger, Humphrey Bogart finds a defining role that anticipates the underlying fatalism and moral ambiguity visible in the career-making roles soon to follow, including Sam Spade in Huston's directorial debut, The Maltese Falcon.
Earle suggests a prescient variation on the enraged sociopaths that were fixtures of the gangster melodramas that shaped... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Ida Lupino - Humphrey Bogart Director(s): Raoul Walsh DVD Release Date: Released the 04 November 2003 Usually ships within 24 hours
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One of Humphrey Bogart's finest performances dominates this unusual 1950 film noir, which focuses less on the murder mystery at the center of its plot than on the investigation's devastating effect on a fragile romance. For Bogart, already a noir icon, the Andrew Solt script afforded an opportunity to explore a more complex and contradictory role--an antiheroic persona in line with the actor's most accomplished and absorbing triumphs throughout his career.
For maverick director Nicholas Ray, the film posed the challenge of taking crime dramas beyond their usual formulas and into a more mature realm, as well as a chance to cast a jaundiced eye on the film industry itself. Its protagonist is Dixon Steele, a Hollywood screenwriter with an acerbic wit and a violent temper. Tasked with... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Humphrey Bogart - Gloria Grahame Director(s): Nicholas Ray DVD Release Date: Released the 18 March 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Yes, it's true: you can virtually see Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall falling for each other in this Howard Hawks variation on Casablanca but adapted from--as legend has it--Ernest Hemingway's self-declared "worst novel." (The story goes that Hawks told Hemingway he could make a movie of the author's least work, and Hemingway gave him the rights to this story.) The script by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman actually makes this one of Hawks's and Bogart's most interesting and often exciting films. Bogart plays a boat captain who reluctantly agrees to help the French Resistance while wooing chanteuse Bacall. Hoagy Carmichael, wry at the piano, adds a delicious accent to an already wonderful mood. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Humphrey Bogart - Lauren Bacall Director(s): Howard Hawks DVD Release Date: Released the 04 November 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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